


Which Witch?

by Pres310



Series: Wild Witches, Wilder Magic [2]
Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: But the headcanon is my personal favorite, Curses, Eda Clawthorne's Curse, Good Parent Eda Clawthorne, Kinda went Feral writing this one boys, Magic, Tarot References, Trans Eda Clawthorne, eda being trans doesnt come up here, short character study, so its important to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27236353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pres310/pseuds/Pres310
Summary: The wild magic of the boiling isles does not choose people- it chooses opportunities and rarely ever deadens itself. The magic of the boiling isles, raw and beautiful in nature, sees an opportunity in two young magic students as they grow and change the world(s)- hopefully for the better.
Relationships: Eda Clawthorne & Lilith Clawthorne, Eda Clawthorne & Luz Noceda
Series: Wild Witches, Wilder Magic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988593
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no clue what this ended up as, all I know is that I listened to "Which Witch" by Florence + The Machine (would heavily recommend listening to that while reading this, btw) and kind of went Feral for a little while.
> 
> A short, kind of experimental take on Eda's character and her relationship to magic... and the possible start of a new series that might contain the longest fic I've ever written that might also be a songfic for "children will listen" from "into the woods".
> 
> Depends on whether or not my ADHD cooperates ;)

Beneath the morning sun, like The Tower, Reversed (obviously), Eda had stood strongly, so wretched and alive. She spat herself back out in the middle of that arena, her fox-hackle hair bright like a splash of blood upon a tablecloth and her eyes and fangs bared so wide. She looked at her sister, her own flesh and blood, rounded and softer with a puppy’s curling mop of hair. She looked in her sister’s eyes and mirrored back to her was not the soft edges of a dog or a prim yet mischievous vulpine face. It was the wild, Feral, snarling face of a fox.

  
She wanted to bite something. She wanted to howl.

  
Magic- impure, unholy, unclean, but raw and so beautiful- beat in her veins and crackled behind her eyes and held air beneath her collarbone so tightly she wanted to cry or to laugh. She craved relief that couldn't be found by mortal means. Of course- flesh and mortality were a gift to be indulged in. And Wild magic, so loving and so beautiful and so humblingly uncontrollable, was Eda’s indulgence.

  
Focus, Eda. Focus.

  
It was a trick she’d had to teach herself- focus that thrumming, exhausting, magical power and energy into a single spell. Find the source of that aching and grab its hand like an old friend, and then try not to shake into a bunch of pieces as you cast your spell. Which was all a long-winded way of saying- Eda had a relationship with magic like no other, like she’d been practicing and respecting it for centuries… and grades like she’d only been taught discipline for seconds. And, thank the Titan for everybody else, no desire to wield that power over others.

  
“The Duel Between Eda and Lilith Clawthorne shall…” Eda had almost completely tuned out the sound of the world around her. Shit- she was dueling Lily today. One of them would earn their spot in the emperor’s Coven, and the other would…

  
Oh no.

  
She couldn't do that to Lily.

  
Not just in a moral sense (but, of course, that was a part of it), but in a physical sense. The rising tightness in her chest wasn't just the high of adrenaline and magic, she realized. She genuinely was having trouble breathing; her lungs cramped as she inhaled and uncomfortably tightened when she exhaled. She wheezed, and panic dawned on Eda like a bucket of cold water thrown over her head. She- she didn't even want this, anyway. Lilith wanted it so much more than her and holy shit she was going to have to surrender.

  
And when she did, she was surprised her voice didn't crack from how her entire body seemed to be seizing up on her. She swallowed down a sob and tried not to gag on it, and as she turned away, her thoughts unraveled and unwound themselves into a tangling mass of instinct and cursed, flayed muscles. That wild, Feral, snarling fox she’d once seen was stomped beneath the boot of something horrible.

  
Eda’s last coherent thought was about the sudden, irritating itch on her wrists.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen- I will never NOT take the opportunity to dunk on Emperor Belos.

Eda Clawthorne, the Owl Lady, Public Enemy Number One. With all the titles she held- the ones she wore like a stake tied to her back and like flames licking the hem of her skirt- one would expect her to live in some hollowed out castle in the depths of the Isles. One would expect her to cover her bent and broken bones and caving, stretched skin with a cloak like pinioned wings. One would expect her eyes to glow like some eldritch cat’s, for the deadened magic around her to hum and numb like TV static, for her features to be covered with the skull of some poor deer.

  
Eda wanted to laugh at anybody who expected those- they had the wrong witch.

  
Of all the things Luz had thought about outlaw witches- with her warped lens that came from being so very human- Eda was not the first image that would have come to mind when she first entered the Boiling Isles.

  
But of course- when has this source ever been what you expected?

  
Eda hadn't felt the energetic firecrackers at her heels of strong magic in… years, probably. She could still feel the ebb and flow of it, still feel the short and sharp kicks to her chest when she tried something especially strong and especially draining. But she could hardly recall the feeling of her eyes watering and a howl climbing it's way up her throat- nothing had evoked emotions that strong since her curse had practically snapped her spine and left her to heal it on her own. Metaphorically, she was still standing a bit crooked.

  
However, what she had felt- time and time again- were dead zones of magic. Where a feeling that came as naturally to Eda- and hopefully other witches- as her own heartbeat suddenly dropped off the map. It was like losing her hearing; the world was uncomfortably cottony and silent and dead. And don't get Eda started on electricity- it was sharp and painful and it hummed in a way that was so similar to and yet somehow so starkly different from magic. Magic had a rhythm, it was alive, it was bouncing and pulled and pushed as it pleased. Electricity was static and dull and numb, humming like TV static and unsettling. Eda had glimpsed humans before- they were walking magic dead zones, the black holes in an already dark and empty void.

  
Which was why Eda almost couldn't believe Luz Noceda was human.

  
Luz was human alright, so very human, so wonderfully and believably human in the best sense of the word. But something about her thrummed so heavily with magic the minute she stepped into Eda’s world- she wasn't a void of energy, as soft as cheap velvet, but just as itchy and uncomfortable. Unlike most humans, there wasn't some small event horizon around her that froze and deadened magic like nerve endings. No- Luz Noceda had stirred up something in the Isles that hadn't been stirred up in… oh, let's guess 50 or so years. 

  
And Eda loved every bit of it- she was intrigued, and the more she got to know this strange little teen, the more Eda began to feel that magic again. To have the moments where it hissed and popped between her fangs like sparks, to have the moments when casting spells where her voice sang and warped and she cried out her thanks to all that could hear and all that would listen.

  
And she supposed that, bittersweetly, she loved Luz like her own child.

  
And maybe that was part of it.

  
Maybe that was part of why, when seeing that human in danger, Eda almost screamed from anger and from the magic in her being that seemed to say “well, it's about time, you old witch”. Her heart was a caged bird in her ribs, her being felt almost too much for her own body, her teeth wanted to snap and bite. As she cast spells, her body contorted and bent as she howled and sang and screamed wildly at the highest registers her voice could handle. She let the magic of the isles guide her erratically one last time, a frantic and tight dance of two loved ones. It thrust her arms out like it was their first time guiding a human body, and in that moment, Eda had never felt more alive. 

  
Her body and mind and voice rife with magic and ready to snap with the force of it, Eda was a Witch in the highest and truest regard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hozier, Mitski, and Florence + The Machine all collectively make me feel indescribable emotions and that is why I wrote this fic /hj

**Author's Note:**

> Off topic, but while scrolling through some of the Eda Clawthorne ships trying to find the platonic and familial relationships to tag this with... I found out that so many people in this goddamn fandom need therapy, omg. If any of you think that romantically shipping Eda with her fucking SISTER or any of the minor characters (who are CHILDREN) is okay, get the fuck off my page and get therapy. That stuff is nasty.


End file.
